Tag Archives: fiction

I know it’s been awhile since my last blog but I caught a nasty case of the whispers last rise and my pod didn’t produce nearly enough silk to buy a LifePak off the Chimes. Don’t worry though, I’m better now and have even found the energy to hunt dust swans again.

I’m currently typing this on the keyboard-tattooed belly of a mind tramp who will use her considerable skills to retain everything I’m writing, then bring the finished piece to the Central Spire for input. It cost me the last of my corn smut but I didn’t think I’d be able to manage to trip myself because lately my hair is very susceptible to any frequency about 30 hertz. Anyway, I have big news…

Would have bad hair day if I went here

…I’m getting married!

I know what you’re thinking: is she a Potter or a Sickling? I’ll get to that in a minute.

We met at a bleeding; myself in line with the other Reds, her a few feet to my right with the Blues. Small talk is common when you’re waiting to get sucked, but I’m not much of a talker so I normally keep to myself and count shards, or take the opportunity to lay out an array and charge my salt filter. My interest in her piqued when I caught sight of the blade she wore on her hip. The shape resembled something that would be adept at gutting the unusual curvature of an infant glass crab’s body. Since I’d been craving some of that sweet crab meat since The Churn, I attempted to strike up a conversation.

“Is that blade for gutting infant glass crabs?” I asked, assuming she spoke Plain but making a gesture with my hands that mimicked a glass crab’s first dance just in case.

Me trying to get crab meat “the old fashioned way” hahaha

I wasn’t sure if it was due to my ridiculous performance or the crystals I forgot to take out of my ears that morning but rather than answer she produced the blade, cut a swath of hair from her left temple, and handed it to me.

“You’ve been marked,” she said in perfect Plain.

I’d heard of this Sickling ritual from traders and poets across the Nine Plots, always assuming it was sex fiction for lonely travelers, up there with Tale of the Moist Herd or Jid’s Honkers. My familiarly with the tradition meant I knew my options: either succumb to the marking and become her eternal field boy or attempt to flee and risk having her hunt me, catch me, kill me, skin me, weave my skin into a diaper for the Prime King’s offspring, and have my meat and innards pulped into an ink to be used for their famous comic strips that satirize races they’ve eviscerated.

I didn’t feel much like running and I was getting kind of bored of trying to procreate through jinxing the hopping apes that lived nearby, so I accepted her mark and was quickly fused to her via a length of goblin vine.

We’ve been together for three floods now! She’s currently allowing me to roam while she gathers cones for the official marking ceremony, and as soon as I’m done typing I’m going to try to find a wedding ring before she re-fuses us for the skiff ride back to her hole. I figure it’s a nice gesture to include some of my own traditions before my independence, language, soul, fingernails, and body hair are stripped away from me as we begin our new life as Niff and Sickling.

Our first pic as a couple 🙂

Which ring should I get?

I could find a snake worm and knot it up but I’m afraid it won’t dry in time. My best option is probably try to steal a pike spring off a SandSki but I only see one at this bazaar and it seems to be guarded by a hybrid who can likely smell my thoughts. Ah well, I suppose I can figure that out later. I see my new darling crawling back this way and if she catches me doing this she might not let me sing my regrets to her pack once we get home, so that’s it for me!

– Mick R.

938482991.45893020049928FHEUFKDKKDF**********transaction_accepted
spire-net-40.309
Sent